Recently Braedale Goldwyn became the 1st sire ever to produce 1000 Excellent daughters in Canada (Read more – Goldwyn First Ever to 1000 EX in Canada). At this year’s Royal Winter Fair Goldwyn sired 27% of the animals shown, including Grand, Reserve, Honorable Mention, Intermediate, Reserve Intermediate and Honorable Mention Intermediate Champions (Read More – The 2012 Royal Winter Fair Holstein Show – One of the Greatest Stories Ever Told). It is no surprise that many enthusiasts declare Goldwyn to be the greatest type sire ever.
Grand Champion Selection at the 2012 Royal Winter Fair. All sired by Braedale Goldwyn
At the Bullvine we wanted to determine the secret to Goldwyn’s tremendous success. When you look at Goldwyn’s conformation values for Chest Width (-3) and Body Depth (-4) you don’t instantly assume that he would be such a dominant type sire. In order to analyze Goldwyn’s type transmitting ability versus other great sires, we looked at his ability to sire the pinnacle of the breed – an Excellent cow. To make it a level playing field, we looked at sires that had a significant number of their daughters that were 5 years or older. In other words, that were eligible to go Excellent. Here is what we found.
| Sire | Born | Conf | %GP | EX | VG | GP | G | F | %EX |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| ERBACRES DAMION | 23-Jul-00 | 15 | 90 | 104 | 962 | 1254 | 257 | 7 | 4 |
| BRAEDALE GOLDWYN | 3-Jan-00 | 12 | 85 | 1017 | 10837 | 14493 | 4450 | 271 | 3 |
| SHOREMAR BKB ALLEGRO | 1-Sep-00 | 11 | 88 | 22 | 103 | 136 | 33 | 2 | 7 |
| WILCOXVIEW JASPER | 5-Jun-99 | 11 | 84 | 159 | 2517 | 3926 | 1211 | 56 | 2 |
| INNWOOD TERRASON | 21-Jun-96 | 10 | 82 | 238 | 1583 | 2562 | 914 | 48 | 4 |
| LADINO PARK TALENT-IMP | 31-Mar-98 | 10 | 79 | 517 | 4624 | 8843 | 3583 | 194 | 3 |
| BKB AFFIRMED | 17-Sep-01 | 10 | 84 | 3 | 77 | 144 | 42 | 0 | 1 |
| RENAISSANCE TRIUMPHANT | 7-May-95 | 9 | 88 | 101 | 446 | 434 | 131 | 5 | 9 |
| FUSTEAD EMORY BLITZ | 2-Mar-96 | 9 | 75 | 213 | 2118 | 4399 | 2062 | 153 | 2 |
| SUNNYLODGE LINJET | 1-Mar-92 | 8 | 87 | 282 | 392 | 1244 | 365 | 7 | 12 |
| EK-OSEEANA ASPEN | 4-May-00 | 8 | 83 | 24 | 101 | 161 | 54 | 6 | 7 |
| REGANCREST DUNDEE | 3-May-99 | 8 | 83 | 480 | 3871 | 5737 | 1984 | 91 | 4 |
| ROYLANE JORDAN | 1-May-96 | 8 | 81 | 195 | 1591 | 2583 | 1022 | 47 | 4 |
| WINDY-KNOLL-VIEW PRIMETIME | 8-Mar-00 | 7 | 81 | 91 | 529 | 468 | 317 | 9 | 6 |
| DUPASQUIER CARISMA | 25-Sep-01 | 7 | 83 | 59 | 714 | 1377 | 417 | 9 | 2 |
| BOSS IRON | 17-Jul-96 | 7 | 75 | 21 | 427 | 948 | 439 | 23 | 1 |
| MARKWELL KITE | 12-Mar-99 | 6 | 79 | 77 | 619 | 1017 | 432 | 27 | 4 |
| VALLEYRIVER RUBEN REDMAN | 17-Jun-99 | 6 | 80 | 91 | 814 | 1403 | 536 | 25 | 3 |
| INDIANHEAD ENCOUNTER | 28-Nov-99 | 5 | 79 | 17 | 200 | 353 | 148 | 7 | 2 |
| OSEEANA ASTRONOMICAL | 15-Sep-90 | 4 | 81 | 219 | 1157 | 1582 | 638 | 55 | 6 |
| HANOVER-HILL-R SPIRIT | 26-Dec-92 | 2 | 80 | 127 | 569 | 783 | 347 | 16 | 7 |
| HANOVERHILL STARBUCK | 26-Mar-79 | -1 | 71 | 419 | 7257 | 19324 | 10818 | 177 | 1 |
| DONNANDALE SKYCHIEF | 24-Aug-86 | -2 | 74 | 277 | 2573 | 4429 | 2423 | 124 | 3 |
| MARSHFIELD ELEVATION TONY | 6-Aug-72 | -6 | 73 | 36 | 776 | 1869 | 960 | 7 | 1 |
What stands out when looking at these sires is that, even though Goldwyn has a high conformation index, there are no less than 12 sires (Linjet, Triumphant, Allegro, Aspen, Spirit, Primetime, Astronomical, Damion, Terrason, Dundee, Jordan and Kite) that actually had a higher percentage of their classified daughters score EX. Linjet, Triumphant, Allegro, Aspen, Spirit, Primetime, and Astronomical have more than double the percentage of their daughters scoring Excellent compared to Goldwyn.
RF GOLDWYN HAILEY EX-97-2E-CAN
2012 Supreme Champion World Dairy Expo
2012 Supreme Champion Royal Agriculture Winter Fair
Let’s take a closer look at Linjet, Triumphant, Allegro and Aspen. These sires not only have a higher percentage of daughters classifying Excellent, they also have a lower percentage scoring Good or lower. This highlighted something very interesting. On average, the 2 yr old daughters of this group of sires actually scored lower than Goldwyn’s daughters, but as they matured, they tended to significantly increase in score. Since the sire conformation index only uses classification scores as 2 year olds, this age improvement was not reflected in all of their conformation scores. Not being able to foretell this age improvement had a significant effect on semen sales of these bulls because most breeders use conformation to determine what type sires to use. As a result breeders missed out on these sires whose daughters matured later and scored higher later in life. This was especially true for Allegro and Aspen, whose later-maturing daughters developed outstanding dairy strength post first lactation.
The Bullvine Bottom Line
There is no question that Goldwyn has had the most number of Excellent daughters, nearly double the number produced by second place sire, LADINO PARK TALENT-IMP. But why is this? Is it the result of his great type transmitting ability, or is it his type proof combined with his high LPI proof resulted in much greater use. In other words, is it volume or is it quality? Undoubtedly, Goldwyn has been the most dominant type sire of the past decade, the bottom line question is,”Does Goldwyn dominate because of ability or because of opportunity?”
Looking to find out what to breed your Golwyn’s to? Check this out Breeding the Next Show Winners
